Attention to the Unseen

Barry Friedman and Stephen I. Vladeck write: In the wake of another fatal shooting by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis, many people are wondering what can be done. The answer has been right in front of us all along. Despite the incredulity with which some legal observers meet the idea, state and local prosecutors can prosecute federal officials for violating state criminal laws. Prosecutors should be gathering and securing evidence and seriously considering filing charges — sooner rather than later….

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  A frame-by-frame assessment of actions by Alex Pretti and the two officers who fired 10 times shows how lethal force came to be used against a target who didn’t pose a threat.

  Ken Klippenstein writes: “The brand new agents are idiots,” an experienced ICE agent assigned to homeland security investigations told me. This same sentiment was echoed by virtually everyone I talked to, with several conveying the view that [Alex] Pretti’s death was the fault of some skittish young recruit who panicked when he heard the word “gun” (if that’s what happened). Even one of the new ICE recruits agreed with the experienced agent’s low assessment of the Trump freshman class….

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Noah Berlatsky writes: The regime’s mind-blowing dishonesty is ultimately a way to demean and mark those who resist. They function as fascist solidarity, signaling that partisans can and should do anything and everything to political enemies, no matter how violent, cruel, or unnecessary. Trump lies about so many things and with such frequency that it can start to seem like a gag or a joke. He lied about the crowd size at his first inauguration. He lied that a hurricane…

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Politico reports: President Donald Trump’s threat of “retribution” and Attorney General Pam Bondi’s explicit policy demands may be undercutting the federal government’s legal arguments defending its immigration crackdown in Minnesota. A judge hearing a lawsuit seeking to halt the ongoing surge of thousands of federal immigration agents in the Twin Cities repeatedly cited Trump’s and Bondi’s statements Monday as evidence that the massive “Operation Metro Surge” in the Twin Cities isn’t aimed solely at enforcing immigration laws. Rather, their comments…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: Chris Madel was distraught as he left last Tuesday’s GOP gubernatorial debate at a suburban movie theater, where he had squabbled onstage with six other candidates ranging from the speaker of the house to the embattled founder of MyPillow about nearly every major political issue but immigration. It rattled Madel that no one mentioned the thousands of federal agents stationed in and around Minneapolis. No one mentioned the fatal shooting of Renee Good, a 37-year-old…

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Funny how the “shall not be infringed” crowd suddenly forgets the Second Amendment the moment it’s inconvenient. The man had a carry permit — and now Trump’s line is “only criminals carry guns.”So which is it? A constitutional right, or a talking point you drop when the facts… pic.twitter.com/68HitgmUnl — House Of Carter🇺🇸 (@House0fCarter) January 25, 2026 Kristi Noem’s 2023 NRA Speech: Noem 2023 NRA Speech: We have been here before. Violence in our streets and in our schools. Families…

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Kyle Varner writes: The concept of the Dual State, first articulated by the jurist Ernst Fraenkel, one of the few Jews in Germany who was allowed to temporarily practice law during a ban on Jewish lawyers due to his status as a World War I veteran, describes a system where two parallel governmental structures inhabit the same body. On one side is the Normative State—the administrative body that handles the routine, non-political business of a nation through predictable laws and…

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Mike Zamore writes: A 5-year-old child detained and sent with his father to a Texas immigration detention facility. Minnesotans shot – and even killed – at the hands of federal agents. U.S. citizens arrested by masked officers in broad daylight. These headlines should be enough to make anyone rethink their support of President Donald Trump’s immigration agencies. The death of 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti on Saturday – caught on camera from multiple angles — must finally shock this country’s…

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The Daily Beast reports: A federal judge granted a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from “destroying or altering evidence” in connection with the fatal shooting of VA nurse Alex Jeffrey Pretti. Judge Eric C. Tostrud, who was nominated to the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota by Donald Trump in 2018, issued his ruling on Saturday evening. The Department of Homeland Security, ICE, Border Patrol, Attorney General’s Office, and the FBI are prohibited from tampering…

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The Guardian reports: The Minnesota man who was killed by federal agents on Saturday has been identified as Alex Pretti, 37, a registered nurse working in the intensive care unit at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System, which serves veterans. It’s the second fatal shooting this month in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in addition to another non-fatal shooting, amid a major crackdown in Minnesota by federal agents. Pretti attended nursing school at the University of Minnesota, where he was also a junior…

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MS Now reports: Aides to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche directed the U.S. Attorney’s office and FBI agents based in Minnesota to shut down a civil rights investigation into an officer’s fatal shooting of Renee Good and instead alter it to probe Good for possible criminal liability, according to three people briefed on the discussions. After Good was killed on Jan. 7, FBI agents drafted a search warrant to obtain her car to reconstruct the path of bullets that an…

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